The idea of changing the names of East High School and Denfeld High School has come up as a way to make displaced Central kids feel like they have a new school of their own.
I strongly oppose the idea. My parents are graduates of East, and my grandfather is a Denfeld graduate.
It wouldn't make sense. Even though Central kids lose their school and traditions, every other kid in Duluth shouldn't have to lose theirs, too.
If school names change, I believe many East and Denfeld students would be less welcoming to Central students, thinking they are to blame. Though Central students are most definitely not to blame, there'd still be tension.
Denfeld needs to stay Denfeld, and East needs to stay East.
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My sophomore class at Denfeld already is strongly affected by the red plan. We are going to be a displaced class, either not graduating from the school we have now or being the first graduates of a basically new school.
Displaced Central students will all be graduated within four years. The schools will have proportionately less tension within them then. A name change would be a short-term solution. In the long-term, decades of heritage and tradition would be destroyed at both Denfeld and East.
I understand the resentment many Central students probably will feel. When Denfeld was threatened with closure, many of us were angry, also.
It's selfish to think everything can be kept as it is and that there wouldn't be any tension within the new schools. Only time can heal anger and resentment. No one can be forced to welcome or feel welcomed.
Skyler Johnson is a sophomore at Duluth Denfeld High School.
